I got an email on Friday advertising 50% off on this massage package:
“Renew yourself with this head to toe pampering experience! The OC Spa Vacation Package includes a full body Swedish Massage with Deep Back Therapy & a Heavenly Warm Foot Exfoliation & Reflexology Treatment (75 min.). Next, enjoy a Green Tea Purifying Facial accompanied by a Soothing Acupressure Scalp Treatment & Neroli Floral Water Aromatherapy. Finally, your stress will melt away with a Calming Back Facial to help soften & smooth this often neglected area (75 min). A Perfect Package for both men & women who would like a summer vacation without the stress of travel. We look forward to taking you away soon!”

How could I turn that down? That’s 2.5 hours for $160! The facility was able to accomodate 2 simultaneous appointments on Saturday afternoon, so I booked that for me and Mr. W. While at our appointment yesterday, I think I picked up on the massage therapist in that platonic girly way. She’s fairly newly here from Chicago but had always said, since she was a young girl, that she would move to California one day. Her family just ignored it as the unrealistic musings of a dumb kid, until she up and moved here last year. We got talking about how she feels like she ought to start dating, but she was also enjoying her freedom too much to give it up. On the other hand, she’d like some casual dates here and there to pass the time but didn’t know how to go about doing it. She was thinking about joining Match dot com, and I held my tongue about that which ended up being a good move as the next thing she told me was that her brother had been on that dating service and ended up marrying his Match. I suggested that if she just wants really casual hangouts for now, to give people around her a chance before she puts money down on an internet dating site. She didn’t know where or how to start.

I suggested that she think about what hobbies or interests are important to her. Then to join a group or activity revolving around that interest and meet people through there. At least then, she knows she has at least one thing in common with the guy. I told her that I’ve actually had quite a few people ask me out through the gym, and at least if I meet someone through the gym, I know he’s not a total couch potato and is into keeping up his physical health, which is important to me. I told her that peak gym times are about 5:30p, when people get there after work, and if she gets there a bit before that and situates herself to see patrons walk in, she’ll know who comes in wearing suits cuz that’d mean they’re professionally employed. And if she sees someone she likes, she can always walk up to him and say, “You look like you know what you’re doing, can you help me with this piece of equipment?” or maybe ask some tips on developing some body part while complimenting the guy, such as “You have great shoulders, what exercise do you do to tone that up?” She’s actually very pretty, so I can’t imagine that some guy wouldn’t be glad to give her a few pointers. Plus, when some gym rat finds out she’s a massage therapist, he’d be all over that! She thought my ideas were creatively brilliant. I suggested if she likes cooking, to take a few recreational specialty cooking classes, and it turns out she absolutely loves cooking. So that opens a ton of other stuff up, such as telling some guy she’s developed some rapport with, “I’ve got a class tonight to make Mediterranean pastas from scratch and I can’t finish all that food we bring home by myself, wanna help?” Or, “I’ve got this great recipe I wanna try at home from my cooking class for savory tarts, wanna come by and loan me your taste buds?” Pretty girl + massage therapist + cook, HELLO! I also told her she has very little competition in SoCal because (sorry for the stereotype, but stereotypes exist for a reason, not saying there are no exceptions) pretty girls tend to be pretty useless. They tend to have everything handed to them on a silver platter due to their looks, so they can’t cook, don’t clean, have nothing interesting to say as they haven’t needed to develop their personalities or be particularly educated, they can’t save or hang onto money, and feel entitled to being financially spoiled by men. “Really?” she said, “But the stuff I do are so…normal.” “Not around here,” I told her. I also gave her some examples of overheard conversations at restaurants; some pretty blonde in a business suit gushing to her girlfriend about a new guy she met who’s so perfect and oh yeah, he’s a “waitress” (how’d he pull that one off?); girl going on and on to a guy at the bar about her lipstick color and lip shape, while he zoned out and sat there silently staring into his beer while she obliviously rambled on (he ended up turning to his other side, where I was, and bought me a drink and the other girl was so mad she stormed out and kicked my barstool hard as she passed by); man at a restaurant’s outdoor patio table staring past a woman’s shoulders as she gabs to him about random stuff, completely unaware that he had been silent and not looking at her for the past 15 minutes as she talked. The massage therapist laughed and said she was going to pay more attention to things around her from now on.

When we left, she passed me her email address and after getting back I sent her the most recent specialty cooking class syllabus for a great artisan bakery nearby. We’d been emailing since.

Why weren’t things so crystal-clear when *I* was looking, years and years ago?